City hopes to encourage downtown projects with more generous tax incentives

Developers of residential and commercial projects downtown will get full tax abatement benefits under the city’s community reinvestment area under legislation Columbus City Council will consider Monday night.

The legislation extends a full 15-year, 100 percent tax abatement on all real property improvements downtown and any requirement for payments in lieu of taxes (PILOT) contributions. It also seeks to eliminate “target areas” that, as in the case of residential projects during the last 10 years, had limited property tax abatements to 10 years or 75 percent depending on where downtown the project or adaptive re-use projects took place.

“This simplifies it across the downtown community reinvestment area,” Steve Schoeny, the Columbus Department of Development director, told me.

The downtown CRA dates back to 1992.

The timing of the emergency legislation comes as commercial developer Daimler Group Inc. and apartment developer Kaufman Development get ready to build their $50 million office and residential complex at 250 S. High St.

That project, set for construction in mid-December, will be anchored by the Resource LLC marketing and advertising firm.

“There are a couple of project we’re working on that this (policy change) is important for,” Schoeny said. “Whenever you’re looking at that kind of development, construction schedules can be tight.”